Moving To Andalusia

One of the properties for sale in Portugos

As I am looking to buy a house in the Andalusian Alpujarras I’m curious how the global economical crisis is affecting the real estate prices in this neck of the woods.

Type “Spanish housing market” into any old search engine and you’ll get millions of results. Google gives you over 11.100.000 results, Yahoo! yields a whopping 22.100.000. Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s curious.

So I figured I’d ask someone in the know and who better than real estate agent Mike Harbourne, though, as he stated himself, “Never trust a real estate agent!”

Harbourne is with Dreamtime Properties in Capileira. “Now is a pretty good time to buy,” says Mike, “Although prices haven’t gone down spectacularly,  because around here in the Alpujarras they just don’t, but you might get a slightly better deal.”

Times are  pretty bad on the property market “I’m not doing much business right now because of the crisis.” On the one hand buyers are afraid to commit their hard earned cash, but also banks have gotten a lot more squeamish about whom they lend money to. “Last year in Granada alone 18.000 mortgages were signed for by foreigners, 9.800 of these have been recalled within the year.” Because of the recalls and the crisis, banks won’t lend to anyone unless they can prove they can repay every last penny.

Still, anyone looking for a bargain in these times of crisis needn’t think they can just make any old offer to local homeowners. “I have this property on my books that’s been for sale for well on thirty years. Finally there was an offer, 500 euros below the asking price. That property’s still on my books!”

On properties belonging to Northern Europeans and Brits, someone looking to buy can try putting in an offer and it might work, depending on how badly they want to sell. “If a foreigner wants to sell, they’re gonna sell. Usually they need to go home for some reason or other. The locals don’t work like that. It’s up to you: either like it and you buy it for the price they’re asking, or you don’t”

Having said this, however, when we went out to view a locally owned property, the price went down 25.000 euros on the spot. So maybe even locally there is still some room for negotiation…

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October 18th, 2008 | Tags: Andalucia, Andalusia, Ask price, buying property Andalusia, Capileira, La Alpujarra, Real estate, Spain | Category: Buying a house in Spain, Practical tips on living in Spain | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL